Having the weekend to get away and do something different for a few days was much needed rest to the soul. I was able to get some much needed sleep, reflect some on my first week of camp, read a good amount, help a friend move, spend some extra time in the word and prayer, get replenished through the faithful preaching of The Word and the taking of Holy Communion at church, go on a fun date with my lovely mother, and continue digging into 1st Peter with my young adult bible study. As the weariness of the first week of camp began to melt away, the excitement in my heart rose as week two came to a start.
To be honest I was a little nervous about today as both of the rooms I was over seeing were getting a new camper who had been out all of last week, and a new camper meant new dynamics. But it didn’t for one-second faze our awesome team of counselors. They came in raring to go and ready to take on any new challenges thrown their way and it was encouraging to see.
In the morning I was able to honor one of my counselors in front of everyone with what I titled the “calm cool and collected award.” This counselor has been such an encouragement to me, either as he patiently deals with a child, or quietly informs me of a situation that occurred, nothing seems to catch him off guard. It’s cool to see because he is not that outspoken of a person, he more leads behind the scenes and by example, which is a humble reminder that leadership is not simply the guy giving orders in front of everyone.
This first day of a new week was a fantastic one. There was only one accident report reported between the 2 classrooms and it came in the last 20 minutes of the day. But way more awesome and important than that, my campers really seemed to be having fun. So many highlights occurred today, though there were two really big ones. One of them came during art, when a typical sibling who had finished his craft early went over to the corner of the room and joined with another camper who was playing a game. There were multiple instances of campers hanging out with and engaging with one another today and it really was so cool to see and really made my heart warm. The 2nd was being able to share with the parent of a more incident prone child that they had an absolutely wonderful day and nothing occurred, not only in a he didn’t do anything wrong kind of way, but also in a he had fun at the same time kind of way! This camper loves sidewalk chalk to the point where he spent the entire first half of the day out there and drew one of the coolest murals I have ever seen.
I am so thankful this first day to the new week went so well, the Lord is definitely using it to fill my heart with joy and excitement and the preparation to face any challenges that occur. And don’t get me wrong, today did have it’s share of challenges, from a melt down or two, a lack of volunteers, a volunteer not fully engaging their camper, crazy events in the bathroom, etc etc, but it was seeing the joy on the campers faces that made them seem few and far between even though they actually occurred fairly often. So even on the days that make camp worthwhile, there is space to grow and crisis to step through, and it is only because the Lord brought me here again this summer that I have a chance to do so.
Day Six, 7/9/13:
Once again, it was an amazing encouragement to see so many people come in early and pray over the camp, and it was especially nice to see that there were more guys than just myself this time around. Praying for others is yet another way to love them and I think they’re far more effective than we will ever really understand, and so to have the opportunity to do so with a group of people that have a similar heart for the camp is such a blessing.
The day itself was pretty awesome as well. My counselors are getting in a really sweet rhythm all around, both in learning how to engage specific campers, and learning how to handle different situations. We also had a wonderful supply of volunteers, which really makes my job easier, since because of that we have the manpower to take various kids to different locations if needed and quickly avoid any oncoming crisis. Bowling went ten times smoother than I had imagined, and more importantly, the kids seemed to enjoy it for the most part.
Seeing these kids laugh and smile is just so, so great. It’s also extremely interesting figuring out what makes these kids tick. For example one child could talk your ear off about ceiling fans, while there’s another one who always has a different bionicle each day and is always building with legos either something for that bionicle to fight or to hide in. But two feet away from them is a child who could spend hours outside drawing with sidewalk chalk, and another one who will ride in the wagon until your arms fall off. By God’s grace I am definitely learning to love these kids for who they are and embrace the qualities that make them all so wonderful and unique.
Day Seven, 7/10/13, written about on 7/11/13
Day seven very quickly became one of the longer ones as almost every single camper from my room had a behavior outburst before the day ended, mostly in the afternoon. This led to many stressful and trying situations and by the time the day finally came to an end I was just grateful to make it through. On site days are already fairly tough, but especially in a classroom where the afternoon field trip is something that a good number of my kids use as a motivator and it is therefore “earned.”
The funny thing is the first half of the day made it seem like the whole thing was going to be amazing. For the first time in a seriously significant manner, the campers seemed to engage with each other, and not just the typical siblings. During our sports day, we had 3on3 soccer going where three typical siblings, 2 special needs kids and a volunteer all played together. At lunch much of the same occurred as we had a huge game of monkey in the middle taking place. Those two moments were definitely some of the more precious moments I have seen at camp this summer, and easily put the hectic moments that were about to come into perspective.
One of the major lessons I learned Wednesday was the importance of the camper to counselor/volunteer relationship. It is not enough to simply take any counselor/volunteer and put them together with a camper to achieve the highly coveted 1 to 1 ratio. You really do need to consider the personalities of said people, and when things are not meshing well, be prepared to make a switch. Just around lunchtime one of my campers began to express unhappiness about their buddy and instead of pulling the trigger and making a switch I talked to camper into giving their buddy another chance (to which he replied (and I wrongly ignored) “I’ve been giving them chances all day!”) and finish the day with them. This mistake led to some serious agitation by said camper and fueled one of the more major outbursts of the day, to the point where I had to call in a director and the camper had to be picked up there by his mother instead of in the class room.
Day seven very quickly became one of the longer ones as almost every single camper from my room had a behavior outburst before the day ended, mostly in the afternoon. This led to many stressful and trying situations and by the time the day finally came to an end I was just grateful to make it through. On site days are already fairly tough, but especially in a classroom where the afternoon field trip is something that a good number of my kids use as a motivator and it is therefore “earned.”
The funny thing is the first half of the day made it seem like the whole thing was going to be amazing. For the first time in a seriously significant manner, the campers seemed to engage with each other, and not just the typical siblings. During our sports day, we had 3on3 soccer going where three typical siblings, 2 special needs kids and a volunteer all played together. At lunch much of the same occurred as we had a huge game of monkey in the middle taking place. Those two moments were definitely some of the more precious moments I have seen at camp this summer, and easily put the hectic moments that were about to come into perspective.
One of the major lessons I learned Wednesday was the importance of the camper to counselor/volunteer relationship. It is not enough to simply take any counselor/volunteer and put them together with a camper to achieve the highly coveted 1 to 1 ratio. You really do need to consider the personalities of said people, and when things are not meshing well, be prepared to make a switch. Just around lunchtime one of my campers began to express unhappiness about their buddy and instead of pulling the trigger and making a switch I talked to camper into giving their buddy another chance (to which he replied (and I wrongly ignored) “I’ve been giving them chances all day!”) and finish the day with them. This mistake led to some serious agitation by said camper and fueled one of the more major outbursts of the day, to the point where I had to call in a director and the camper had to be picked up there by his mother instead of in the class room.
Day Eight, 7/11/13:
As today ended and we were walking back to the afternoon meeting my assistant coordinator looked over at me and said “It is days like this one that make camp worth it.” Today was yet another great day, even though we had fear of it being difficult because of the fact that it was our second day in a row on site. And it all began when we made a few changes to the pairings between counselor/volunteer and campers. With the typical siblings out having their very own special “sibs day” between the two rooms we only had 11 kids (there was also one other camper out for the day) and this made things a lot easier to manage. It also gave us coordinators the ability to be extremely flexible in our room choices, while trying to follow the schedule if campers were unhappy with anything there was enough space in the other rooms to take them elsewhere instead of being forced to try and negotiate with them.
Campers that had behavior outbursts yesterday in certain areas today made amazing progress and through some tough love were able to make some fantastic decisions and move on with the day. I even had a camper that because he and his buddy got along so well and had an awesome day playing together, that at the loss of a favorite toy, which any other day so far this camp would of turned into a major melt down moment, instead of that happening he calmly notified me asking us to look around for it. Though we have yet to find said toy, and I am sure some disappointment has been experienced, I really felt like this was a very big personal victory for the camper.
I think it is so crazy to see God work through us to make an impact on these children, and though some people of the world would see what we’re doing here at S.O.S as a waste of time, I really do find it to be a joy and a privilege to show up each day and watch God work. And not only is He using the staff and volunteers here to have an impact on these kids and their families, but He is working just as much in our own hearts through the impact that these kids are making on us. I know for a fact that everyone involved with Soaring Over Seven this summer will come out of it a different person, either more in love with their Lord and Savior or for those who aren’t Christian even beginning to open up to the truth because of the experiences they had this summer, or on the opposite side more hardened in the heart because instead of seeing the difficulties as a chance for growth, they complained the whole time and barely scathed by.
Day Nine: 7/12/13
It was so cool to see how much my campers enjoyed carnival day! From the big slide, to face painting, cosmic bowling, and the huge maze, almost every room seemed to be a hit, even one of the rooms that had the exact same design that it normally does but this time with a second moon bounce. The big maze room and cosmic bowling set up led to some particularly fun moments with the campers as in the background techno music was blasting to go with the dark rooms and light show. When it comes to my favorite moment of the day that came when I saw a community volunteer in my room, who started out the day not really interacting with her camper and just kind of walking along side him, playing chase with said camper and both laughing and smiling. It brings so much joy to life to see someone who maybe has never interacted with a child with special needs before really begin to enter that child’s world and have an impact. As a coordinator it’s a little bit of our job to try and facilitate that through things like the buddy pairings, laying out expectations of our volunteers, or encouraging them throughout the day, and so when you witness it happen, it’s just so awesome.
One of my favorite things about camp beyond the impact that through God’s grace we have on campers or campers have on us, which is an amazing thing in and of itself, is the friendships that are built by the coworkers. The bonds that we share in our love for Christ, our love for these kids, and the service of His church really do serve as an awesome catalyst into some pretty sweet and meaningful relationships. Over the last three weeks (one week of training and two weeks of camp) I have had an opportunity to begin to get to know some really awesome people, my co-coordinators across the hall, my assistant coordinator, our classroom counselors, and all those who come out and play basketball in the afternoons after camp to name a few, and I really do hope and pray that some of these friendships last past camp just as a handful did from last summer.
Overall I would say this second week went extremely well, even with three consecutive on campus days. I would also say it would be hard to even begin to compare this week with the first, as both provided their own set of challenges and excitements. So much of this camp happens in compartments, from week to week, day to day, even station to station during each day, as each moment provides an opportunity to rely on God for the strength to make it through, to rely on God for the grace to forgive and move on, and to rely on God for the love of Christ to show these kids. You really do have to learn to take life a moment at a time, resting in the peace of Christ as He has already laid out the path that we will take during this camp. And though we fail often to fully put our trust in Him, that admittance of failure is yet another opportunity to turn to and experience His grace.
